Nathan Howard/Reuters

Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was released from detention in Russia, is greeted by U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Ms. Kurmasheva’s daughters, and her husband, Pavel Butorin, upon her arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Aug. 1, 2024.

In short order, Joe Biden’s world has transformed. 

Less than two weeks ago, the president was pursuing what looked increasingly to be a failing reelection campaign. After a poor debate performance, he was sinking in polls, fundraising had plummeted, and calls from top fellow Democrats to drop out of the race had reached a frenzied pitch. 

Now an ex-candidate, President Biden is a lame duck. But he’s also liberated, freed from trying to do two full-time jobs simultaneously – running for reelection while also serving as president of the United States. In this new reality, he faces both challenges and opportunities. 

Mr. Biden can spend his remaining time in office focused on two things, political analysts say: cementing the legacy of what Democrats see as a consequential one-term presidency; and helping get his vice president, Kamala Harris – as of Friday, the party’s formal nominee – elected as his successor. His overarching goal remains the same, preventing Donald Trump from returning to the White House. 

Thursday’s massive, multinational prisoner swap with Russia presented Mr. Biden, who has long championed international alliances and the power of diplomacy, with a major victory on the global stage. The swap, which involved cooperation from European allies, included the freeing of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich after 16 months in captivity.

Going forward, “Any positive news that happens in the real world is something that Biden can now announce without an overt political lens,” says Dan Schnur, a former Republican campaign strategist, now an independent. “It won’t translate in quite as partisan a way as if he were the one actually on the ballot.”

Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

President Joe Biden exits Marine One as he returns from Camp David in Maryland, at the White House in Washington, July 28, 2024.

Still, it did not go unnoticed that national security adviser Jake Sullivan mentioned Vice President Harris multiple times in discussing the prisoner exchange at the White House briefing Thursday. He credited her with playing a role in the deal by engaging with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the matter in February at the Munich Security Conference.

In the evening, Ms. Harris accompanied Mr. Biden to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to greet the freed Americans, and both spoke to reporters on the tarmac. Expect to see Ms. Harris playing a more visible role in the weeks to come, with or without Mr. Biden at her side. 

Even amid questions about Mr. Biden’s energy level, there was no doubt Thursday that he was engaged – and happy to celebrate a triumph of diplomacy. Though Mr. Biden’s public schedule isn’t nearly as busy now, with a sudden dearth of campaign events, political analysts see ways for him to remain active in public life. 

“If he’s paced properly, if he chooses what he says in public strategically, then I don’t see why he couldn’t finish successfully,” says William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former policy adviser in the Clinton White House.

The president has already seen his job approval numbers rise since dropping out of the race. But his legacy will ride in no small part on whether Ms. Harris wins in November.

From candidate to featured speaker at DNC

In Chicago later this month, instead of accepting his party’s nomination for a second term, Mr. Biden will be the featured speaker on the first night of the Democratic National Convention. 

Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

President Joe Biden waves after delivering remarks to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act, at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, July 29, 2024.

And on the campaign trail, the president can still play a role. 

“Biden was certainly a weak candidate, but he still did have strengths,” says Mr. Schnur, now a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg school of communications. “He can still be of use to the Harris campaign with working-class voters in Rust Belt states and with older voters.” 

And, Mr. Schnur adds, there’s no reason Mr. Biden shouldn’t be campaigning in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – two key battlegrounds – closer to Election Day, either at Ms. Harris’ side or on his own. He also suggests the campaign could use targeted media featuring Mr. Biden in its outreach to white working-class voters and to seniors, two demographics with which he polls more strongly than Ms. Harris.

The risk is that Mr. Biden is famously gaffe-prone, and he could take her campaign off-message. 

More broadly, Ms. Harris also owns Mr. Biden’s record, for better or worse, be it on the economy, immigration, or the escalating war in the Middle East. Ms. Harris is seen as more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than Mr. Biden, which could help her in battleground Michigan, with its large Arab American community. But Ms. Harris also can’t risk alienating Democratic supporters of Israel. 

“If [Mr. Biden] can accomplish some sort of breakthrough on the Middle East that stabilizes the situation and makes it less of a central issue, that would be helpful to the Democratic ticket,” says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, in an email. “Moreover, any major progress on domestic issues, even using executive power, could be beneficial since Harris’s record is tied to his.”

This “highly unusual moment” differs from 1968

Certainly, the dynamic between Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris is easier than the last time a sitting president, Lyndon B. Johnson, dropped his reelection bid – in 1968 – and his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, tried to run on his record. Mr. Humphrey saw a late surge in support, but only after crossing President Johnson over Vietnam War policy. He lost anyway. 

“This is a highly unusual moment, different than 1968, given how polarized the electorate is, how many people dislike Trump, and how despite being Biden’s VP, [Ms. Harris] represents much more than a continuation of the status quo,” Professor Zelizer writes. 

Indeed, while Mr. Biden’s decision to drop his reelection campaign, rare in American politics, is often likened to President Johnson’s shocking decision to quit his reelection bid, a better role model for the current incumbent might be President Ronald Reagan.

By the end of his second term, Mr. Reagan was slowing down and ready to pass the torch to his vice president, George H.W. Bush. Mr. Bush won what is sometimes called Mr. Reagan’s “third term.” 

The analogy falters, however, not only because of today’s intense polarization but also because of Mr. Biden’s inability to score much above 40% in public approval. Mr. Reagan left office above 60%. But analysts don’t rule out Mr. Biden’s ability to shift his political capital to Ms. Harris, particularly with certain key demographic groups, including white working-class voters. 

Today, Mr. Biden’s legacy is on the line, and a loss by Ms. Harris would wipe it out, says Mr. Galston, the Brookings scholar. If Mr. Trump retakes the White House, then the Biden presidency would effectively be just an “interregnum” between two Trump terms.

“Biden would be seen as a kind of failed president, in the way that Jimmy Carter is,” Mr. Galston says. “Biden’s historical standing is really riding on the outcome of the election.”

Adora Molina knows fire. Six years ago when a fire raged through her town of Magalia, California, she waited until the last minute to evacuate. Her car wasn’t working that morning. So her husband, who had left for work already, defied authorities to go back to the house to get her. 

This time, when an evacuation warning came, they grabbed their go bags and left right away. 

Like other residents facing wildfires this week – the Quarry Fire in Colorado’s Jefferson County and others now burning in the West – she and her husband went in search of emergency shelter.

The Park Fire, burning in Northern California since July 24, has consumed nearly 400,000 acres and is the largest active wildfire in the United States. Thousands of people living in the communities that dot this forest landscape have evacuated their homes – seeking refuge in hotels, with friends or relatives, or in emergency shelters like one at the Neighborhood Church here in the city of Chico. 

After three days at the evacuation shelter, Ms. Molina says she’s tired but grateful for food and a safe place to rest. She’s ready to go home. But the fire could shift at any moment – and they’re not taking any chances.  

Devastating as it is, people are adapting. Residents like Ms. Molina are paying closer attention to – and heeding – evacuation orders and getting better at swift exits from danger zones. Many current evacuees survived the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, just 20 minutes away. So they have learned wildfire lessons as well.

While the lessons have gone beyond the public’s obedience and speed in response to official warnings, it’s notable that in the current wildfire here, no deaths have been reported. Residents may be weary as well as wary. But they are also resilient. 

Ali Martin/The Christian Science Monitor

Adora Molina takes refuge at an evacuation center in Chico, California, July 29. Ms. Molina fled her home in Magalia during the Park Fire, which is the largest wildfire burning in the United States.

“Communities that surround a park footprint ... have had a lot of exposure,” says Yana Valachovic, a scientist and wildfire adviser.

No strangers to wildfire

In fact, the Park Fire is one of the largest in state history, spanning four California counties.

Living at the nexus of five national forests, where wildfire is a near-constant risk, people affected by the fires have in some cases escaped with their lives but little else.

“We burned out. We don’t have nothing left on the property,” says Susan Singleton, who evacuated the home she shares with her partner in Cohasset. This time, when the fire began raging through their community, they got out with their seven dogs and a few other things that fit in their small SUV.

People from Cohasset, Magalia, and other towns under threat have arrived in cars, trucks, and motor homes to set up camp in the sprawling church parking lot nearby. The Red Cross supplies three meals a day, showers, and cots that fill a large church hall.

Ali Martin/The Christian Science Monitor

Susan Singleton and Mike Apel tend to two of their seven dogs at an evacuation center in Chico, California, July 29, 2024. The Park Fire, which has been burning for more than a week, destroyed the couples' home in nearby Cohasset.

Growing fire, growing awareness

More than 70,000 communities and 44 million homes reside in wildland urban interface zones, and experts say that wildfire threats are growing. The frequency of extreme fires has more than doubled since 2003, according to a May 2024 paper in Nature.

Residents in wildfire areas of California and Oregon are well aware of the threat: Eighty-four percent are concerned about wildfire’s effects, according to a recent survey.

“They perceive that they have a risk,” says Michele Steinberg, wildfire division director at the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), which conducted the study. ”And they’re relatively motivated to do something about it.” 

Education is a challenge. Only half of residents in these vulnerable areas say they know how to protect their homes from wildfire – even here in California, which has had decades of policies aimed at fire mitigation. And fewer than half of those surveyed regularly take simple steps – such as clearing flammable items from their home’s perimeter, thinning trees, and keeping gutters clear of debris – to protect their homes, and themselves. 

“That is where people are getting stuck,” says Ms. Steinberg. “The biggest reasons are affordability and not knowing what to do.”

Education and marketing campaigns aim to move the preparedness needle. Programs like the NFPA’s Firewise USA illustrate commonsense steps that prevent or slow the spread of fire, and government agencies like Cal Fire offer checklists.

Ali Martin/The Christian Science Monitor

A deer wanders down Oliver Road in Paradise, California, July 29. Wildlife live alongside residents in this wooded town, which was devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire and came under threat with the Park Fire, which has been burning for over a week.

“This will happen” 

Ms. Valachovic, the wildfire consultant, says recognition and awareness in high-risk communities is an important first step. She, too, has her eye on education: Ms. Valachovic, also a county director for the University of California Cooperative Extension, recently taught 30 K-12 teachers about fire adaptation.

The insurance industry, she adds, is forcing conversations about home protections amid a crisis in homeowners insurance, related in part to extreme disaster payouts. 

Adaptation, she explains, means people who live in wildfire zones can start to replace worry with preparation. They think, “This will happen. I’ve got all my stuff. My house is ready. My community knows what to do ... and I’ve got my act together,” she says. 

Ms. Molina, the Magalia resident who retreated to shelter, shows similar determination.

“It’s so out of control right now, this fire,” she says. Still, she wouldn’t live anywhere else and plans to return home. The pull of home and family is stronger than her fears. 

“My feet are grounded here,” says Ms. Molina. “My kids are here; my grandkids are here. ... I mean, wherever you move, you’re going to take risks.” 

Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters

A person waves a French flag near the Eiffel Tower during the Olympic Games in Paris, July 29, 2024.

The esplanade around Club France in northeast Paris, France’s official hospitality house for the Games, is brimming with people eager to enter the fan zone, watch events on the big screen, and get in on the Olympic spirit.

Sandrine and Lionel Joseph, decked out in leis the color of the French flag, have snapped up some of the last tickets for the day.

But before going in, they stop abruptly, share a pair of earbuds, and intently watch their mobile phone. French judoka Amandine Buchard is about to compete in the semi-finals.

Ms. Buchard fights valiantly, but is taken to the ground by her opponent. “Well, that’s it, it’s over,” says Ms. Joseph, shrugging her shoulders and smiling.

While many Parisians have ditched town during the Olympics this summer, taking advantage of an increase in tourism to put their apartments up for rent, that was out of the question for the Josephs. They met doing judo and say they put their vacation plans on hold in order to be here for this unique moment.

“The Olympics in Paris? It’s a huge opportunity,” says Mr. Joseph. “We need to take advantage of it.”

In the lead-up to the Olympic Games this summer, the French – particularly Parisians – had a multitude of concerns: Would the River Seine be clean enough to swim in? How much would security restrictions take over daily life? And the universal question, would everything be done in time? 

But after a successfully executed opening ceremony, which took viewers on a virtual journey around Paris’s most iconic monuments, the mood in the city is starting to change. Yes, the sporting venues have been finished. The Seine was clean long enough to host triathletes this week. Olympic organizers said on Thursday that 9.7 million tickets have been sold – an Olympic record. And despite some latent grumbling, the French do indeed seem to be embracing the Olympic spirit.

Colette Davidson

Lionel and Sandrine Joseph put their vacation plans on hold to stay in Paris for the Olympic Games. They’ve brought their children to the Club France fan zone in northeast Paris to support the French team, July 28, 2024.

“There is something quintessentially French about cultivating the negative and focusing on what will not go right,” says Éric Monnin, the director of the Center for Olympic Studies and Research and vice president of Olympism at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France. “But now that the Games have started, all I’m hearing from people is how they want to enjoy this moment of togetherness. They’re letting themselves forget daily life, have fun, and take part in the magic of the Olympics.”

“A totally unique experience”

Ticket sales to the Paris Olympic Games got off to a rocky start. Last year, Olympic organizers opted for a lottery system, offering “lucky” winners the chance to purchase tickets ahead of the masses during a 48-hour window. But prices for those initial 3 million tickets were often €200 ($216) or more each and people were encouraged to buy in bulk, putting their total price tag into the thousands.

Since then, organizers have opened ticket sales to the general population. In April, nearly 1 million free tickets were given to local young people and people with disabilities. Every Thursday, more events’ tickets go on sale online.

But the price and availability of tickets have not been the only deterrents when it comes to French enthusiasm. A July opinion poll by the Ifop Group showed that 36% of French people – particularly those from low socioeconomic backgrounds – felt indifferent about the Olympic Games in Paris, while 27% were worried and 5% felt anger. Those figures are up slightly from a May poll, where 37% of people expressed negativity towards the Games.

“The biggest thing that came up was the major question of whether Paris had the capacity to hold the Olympic Games,” says Baptiste Dupont, a researcher at the Ifop Group in Paris. Now, “we’re seeing less negativity and more confidence surrounding the Olympics.”

All the hardware the French athletes are piling up have people cheering ecstatically at watch parties and in the stands. As of July 31, France sat in second place for the medal count. Eight of those medals are gold. Three belong to the same man, French swimming phenom Léon Marchand. Wednesday, he brought home two gold medals, becoming the first athlete to ever medal in both the 200-meter breast stroke and 200-meter butterfly in the same Olympics. Mr. Marchand accomplished that feat in under two hours.

Still, some anger within the French population is palpable. In central Paris last week, protesters gathered to express their discontent. Many cited organizers’ inability to make this year’s Olympics truly inclusive – for instance, authorities have been accused of kicking Paris’s homeless population off the streets to clean up the city for the Games.

Others say the background checks imposed on those applying for a special QR code that is required to enter certain areas of the city during the Olympics are authoritarian and unethical. And some take issue with the Games’ carbon footprint, and want the Olympics to be re-imagined entirely.

“Flying athletes here from around the world? It’s an ecological disaster,” says Isabelle, a protester who withheld her last name because she is not allowed by her employer to speak to the media. “I used to do judo, but I will not be watching the Olympics this year.”

For some French, however, nothing can dampen the Olympic spirit. When the Paris Organizing Committee put out a call about 45,000 volunteer positions during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, it received 300,000 applications. Volunteers did not know when they signed up if they’d get a free ticket to sports events. They have since been offered one ticket each.

Colette Davidson

Kate Brilhante and Jonathan Poupard have taken time out of their work schedules to volunteer for the Paris Games. The Paris Organizing Committee retained 45,000 people from the 300,000 who applied to volunteer.

“It’s a totally unique experience,” says Kate Brilhante, who took a break from her acting career this summer to participate as a volunteer. Over the weekend, she helped guide visitors to Club France. “It’s not every day you get to meet people from around the world and share in this moment.”

Olympic vibes in Paris

Nowhere is the buzz of the Games more visible than in the neighborhood surrounding the Olympic Village, just north of the city in Saint-Denis. At Les Bons Vivants Brasserie, red, white, and blue balloons line the ceiling and, like most restaurants in Paris with a television, the day’s sports events blare out of giant screens. Across the street, superfans press up against the metal security gates where athletes come and go, hoping to get a glimpse of their favorite stars.

Having the Olympic Village and state-of-the-art sports venues at their doorstep has been priceless for residents of Saint-Denis, one of the poorest suburbs in France. Timm Jamieson, who traveled from Virginia to trade pins at his 16th Olympic Games, says he hopes to get neighborhood children excited about the Olympics through pin trading.

“I give them a pin, they trade it and come back,” says Mr. Jamieson, sitting outside with a spread of pins from around the world on cardboard sheets. “They’re starting to really get into it now, it’s so much fun. The Olympics truly make the world a better place. There’s no color, no prejudice. Honestly it brings tears to my eyes.”

As one mother walks home from grocery shopping with her son, smiling and pointing as a bus stops to drop off a team of athletes, Cai Zhanrong runs after his two young sons on their bikes. But then they stop in front of Mr. Jamieson, looking for pins to trade.

“Every time we walk by here now, they stop,” says Mr. Zhanrong, originally from China, who speaks in halting French and lives in an apartment across from the Olympic Village. “The Olympics in Paris are good. Very good.”

Read more of our coverage: Women’s sports are having a moment. The Olympics are showing why. 

On his 100th birthday, James Baldwin has become a ubiquitous figure. His face will pop up in documentaries, podcasts, books – and beyond those curated commentaries, incarnations on social media. No matter the outlet, though, his words are illuminating, intellectual. They are shards from a sharp-tongued swordsman. 

The late writer has many faces: writer, radical, civil rights activist, orator, a queer man and advocate for gay rights. He is, above all else, remarkably human. His face is beautifully worn. He is confident, he is anxious, he is loving, sitting across from a dear friend, poet Nikki Giovanni.

Baldwin, who was born in Harlem on Aug. 2, 1924, came to embody that storied neighborhood more than any writer since Langston Hughes. His works, which accompanied the rise of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, continue to influence writers and activists to this day.

Two weeks before Baldwin’s birthday, I come across a book I’ve read a number of times, and I buy it again like it’s the first – “The Fire Next Time.”

The book will haunt me a bit this time, because it is penned to Baldwin’s namesake, which is also the name of my maternal grandfather and my brother, both of whom are gone now. “Tough, dark, vulnerable, moody,” were the words Baldwin used early in that letter to his nephew, words that could be used to describe Black men.

Baldwin wanted Black people to love themselves. Take this quote, which snapped me back into focus, when I was doomscrolling on social media the other night:

Love has never been a popular movement. And no one’s ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course, you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person. 

His statement about Black men and perpetual rage adorns my podcast: “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time.” I smirk at the duality, because the acronym for “Makin’ A Difference” is simply MAD.

Why people need to read more than “The Fire Next Time”

Danté Stewart is a writer and ordained minister with a fiery and fitting first name. “Shoutin’ in the Fire,” Mr. Stewart’s 2021 memoir, invoked Baldwin and led to the Georgia Writers’ Association naming him as their writer of the year. A former football standout, Mr. Stewart has many talents and faces in his own right – athlete, writer, father.

He also wants us to read more than “The Fire Next Time.”

Dave Pickoff/AP/File

James Baldwin walks on a street in New York, June 19, 1963. He was born in Harlem and came to represent that storied neighborhood more than any other writer since Langston Hughes.

“I think more people should read James Baldwin, particularly, not to lock Baldwin into a certain moment or a certain time, because there’s a thing that happens with our heroes – [they] become stuck in time. So we’re almost reaching back to a past that’s not there anymore,” Mr. Stewart said, when interviewed the day before Baldwin’s birthday, within earshot of his two precocious children. “Baldwin always challenges us to use the past … in such a way that we are able to live in the present.”

Mr. Stewart specifically mentioned “Nothing Personal,” Baldwin’s critique of American society at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He has written about Baldwin extensively, for Time and Oxford American, among other outlets. What shines through for him, as both a writer and minister, is understanding Baldwin’s complexity and humanity.

“There’s this misconception that James Baldwin left his faith [and the church] behind in search of this more liberating thing, which part of that is true. That more ‘liberating’ thing was not leaving [his] faith behind, but reinterpreting it and reimagining it,” Mr. Stewart says. “As I think about the idea of love, as a minister, the beautiful part of faith is that it should be ever growing … coming into deeper knowledge of ourselves and one another. 

“When I think about Baldwin, and I think about my own faith, there’s this deep desire to remain open to the questions of our existence together,” he adds. “That’s what love is.”

Origins of the James Baldwin prize

That love is fostered in the image of a “skinny Black kid” from Baltimore named Lionel Foster. The investor and writer named a scholarship and essay contest in the iconic writer’s honor, the Baldwin Prize.

AP/File

James Baldwin, author and civil rights leader, and actor Marlon Brando pose in front of the Lincoln statue at the Lincoln Memorial, Aug. 28, 1963, during the March on Washington demonstration. Behind Baldwin are actors Charlton Heston (at left) and singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte.

“Of course, the Baldwin Prize exists because of James Baldwin. That’s the primary reason. But I was motivated to do it because I was a skinny Black kid growing up in communities that had been disinvested and segregated for so long, that it felt like eventually the intent was that we would all just die,” Mr. Foster says in a phone interview. “And this is true of many places in America, not just urban places, but they’re not resourced, they’re not tended to, they’re not respected in a way that gives necessary space for anyone’s humanity.

“And I just had to be a part of changing that.”

Mr. Foster’s urgency was reinforced in the heart-wrenching words of a young essayist regarding the topic of empowerment.

“I remember there was a young woman who told me she had never felt empowered. And I thought, ‘Maybe she’s not all that familiar with the word.’ And she said, ‘No, Mr. Foster, I know what the word means. I’m telling you I’ve never felt it,’” he recalls. “It’s taking what Baldwin did instinctively, a process and a way of showing up in the world that he honed over many years, and creating a program, an infrastructure for hundreds of high school students per year to do a similar type of work.”

What began at Baltimore City College High School in Maryland in 2015 has grown into a project with international contributions – an effort worthy of Baldwin’s legacy as a Renaissance man. Close to 350 students participate in the essay contest, and 100 judges from all over the world provide scoring and insight.

“To go from my experiences as a kid to having some role in a hundred people, some of whom don’t even live in this country. ... All of that goodwill focused on young people in inner-city Baltimore,” Mr. Foster says. “There are people in Germany and parts of Africa devoting hours and saying, you know, these kids matter. What I really want is the students to appreciate how much total strangers love them and to see the kind of space we’re trying to make for them in the world. 

“That’s the Baldwin Prize for me.”

The class begins with exercises in deep breathing and concentration. All is quiet and calm, until a few attention hogs make some noise. They snort; they wiggle; they explore with their snouts while giggles slip out from the class.

This is pig yoga, and it’s squeal-y popular.

Ashley Bousquet, owner of Beyond Yoga & Wellness, based in Spencer, Massachusetts, started holding the classes on Mother’s Day in a fenced enclosure in Brookfield. She borrowed three piglets – Charlotte, Wilbur, and Blue – and a few other animals from a friend who owns a minifarm. By late June, Ms. Bousquet had taught 15 sessions of pig yoga and now plans to hold more.

“Pigs are so inquisitive,” she says, noting that the creatures are very social and thrive with human interaction. “They feel what you’re feeling.”

In addition to the pigs, two goats roam the space while the students practice their yoga poses: Munchie, an intelligent 5-month-old, and Daisy, a playful younger goat whom class members enjoy cradling like a baby. There are also a few young bunnies.

Student Anne Fuess says she was “pretty stressed coming here,” but the four-legged friends took her mind off everything going on in her life.

Meanwhile, Andrea Kimstadt examines her stained clothing after the session. With a smile and a laugh, she says, “It’s so worth the laundry.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Ashley Bousquet leads a pig yoga class in Brookfield, Massachusetts, while bunnies roam nearby.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Daisy the pygmy goat receives a pat from a yoga student.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Munchie the goat shares a mat with Ms. Bousquet.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

A student cuddles with Daisy, a baby pygmy goat, during the class. Students say interacting with the animals relieves stress.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

One of the pigs gets a pat during the sold-out yoga class. The pigs are named Charlotte, Wilbur, and Blue.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Daisy climbs onto student Dominique Delva during the meditation portion of the class.

Reuters

Palestinian musician and oud player Raouf Belbeisi speaks about organising a concert in Cairo for musicians from Gaza who fled to Egypt, July 27.

Last month, a group of Palestinian musicians who fled into Egypt from the war in Gaza met for an evening in Cairo to perform their songs. The event was a celebration of their resilience and Palestinian heritage, as well as a way to affirm “that Palestine is not just about war,” as one organizer put it.

Just weeks before, thousands of Israeli Jews gathered at a park in Tel Aviv for a “healing concert.” Many were survivors or the families of victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on a Jewish music festival near the Gaza border. The Tel Aviv concert, said one organizer, was to show that “music is the best therapy for our community.” The motto of the event: “We will dance again.”

In June, a similar festival in New Jersey brought together some 1,300 American Jews. The purpose, said one organizer, was to “pick up the pieces through the spiritually replenishing magic of a live music festival.” One attendee told The Jerusalem Post, “As a proud Jew, I will counter evil, blind hatred, and darkness with friendship ... and great music.”

By its very nature, music creates a receptivity in a listener, offering universal tones that can forge bonds with others and inspire an alternative way of living. Or, as a 2015 report by the United States Institute of Peace stated, the performing arts can “embody a kind of power that rests not on injury or domination, but rather on reciprocity, connectivity, and generativity.”

A good example in the U.S. is an instrumental group in Milwaukee called the Black String Triage Ensemble. Founded in 2019, the all-volunteer Black and Latino musicians rush to scenes of shootings and other tragedies to perform a concert on the streets as an act of healing, offering comfort through music.

“Wherever we show up and we play together is a place of prayer… and asking for peace,” Dayvin Hallmon, founder of the group, said in a PBS documentary. “We love out loud through our music.”

The goal of the ensemble is to prevent violence from happening to anyone in the community, a thought similar with what many Israeli and Palestinian musicians – now divided by war – may be trying to do. They seek to rescue their humanity through song.